The document compares the student's process for their preliminary task versus their main horror film opening task. For the preliminary, there was little planning, unfamiliarity with techniques, and a rushed approach. For the film opening, the student did extensive research on horror conventions, spent significant time planning locations, costumes, sound, and editing techniques. This more thorough process led to a higher quality final product that better achieved genre conventions.

1. Looking back at
your preliminary,
what do you feel
you have learnt in
the progression
from it to the main
task?

2. Preliminary Task
> Planning - With our Preliminary task we did not complete any planning before the filming
process, with this task we were told what actions were supposed to be shown within the
product and it was then down to us to find a suitable location to complete the task of walking
up the stairs, opening a door to then have a conversation.
> Working in a group - We were put into groups by the teacher for our Preliminary, these groups
were people we did not know.
> Demonstrating match on action - Previous to the task, it was explained to us that we must make
the action match and we were shown examples of this.
> Shot reverse shot - Some of us were unfamiliar of what this was however we were shown an
example and it was explained to us.
> 180-degree rule - again, we were unfamiliar of this so it was explained however during the
filming of our preliminary, I was still slightly confused as to how this would work.
> Using sound - After filming and editing our Preliminary task, we did not spend much time on
which music should be used, for example, I picked the first one I felt would fit rather than
looking thoroughly for a good music.

3. > Looking back, the Preliminary task was very rushed and we
did not spend very much time going through it at all, this
informed my film opening because I knew that to get a better
product, we must spend more time on deciding important
elements such as location, titles and music. Therefore we
spent a long time on research and planning for our film
opening and in my opinion this was very beneficial as we have
followed conventions well.

4. The opening for a Horror film -
Planning
> For our film opening we spent a very long time researching aspects
of existing horror films such as location, sound and mise-en-scène
conventions. This meant we had to carry out extensive research
into what we wanted to use in our film opening.
> We created a location scouting sheet to help us decide on a
location and from this we decided to use Pelhurst on
Sawbridgeworth Road as the location for the house scene of the
film opening and then the Prisoner of War Camp located in Hatfield
Heath.
> We also looked into the conventions of horror films to decide on
aspects such as costume, makeup, lighting, sound and titles.

6. Generic Narative Sequence
> We were able to create a generic narative sequence due to our
research and planning. We evaluated existing horror films by
doing both a codal analysis and timed analysis of three horror
films, this meant that we could tell what was typical of a horror
film opening and I also did some research into the story line of
horror films.
> We then created a Prezi in our chosen groups with several
horror film ideas and presented them to the class. This helped
us to create a generic narative sequence because it meant that
we had gained audience feedback and the audience also gave
suggestions
on how these could be improved. This also meant
we were learning what people wanted to see in a

8. Casting Actors
> The process of casting our actor for our film opening was also
very different to when we created our Preliminary task.
> With the Preliminary we used the group we were in as our actors
however with our film opening, a lot of planning went into who
we wanted to use as our actor, for example, we knew we wanted
a teenage girl, we also wanted her to look very vulnerable and
innocent as this would fit with our story line.
> We found a very suitable actor and filmed all of the sequence
from within the house and then our actor dropped out meaning
we had to find another. This was challenging as we were very
happy with the image our first actor had however after finding a
second actor and filming the entire film opening, we were happy
about this as we felt that our actor was very good in the
position.

9. Appropriate Soundtrack
> To find an appropraite soundtrack, we looked at a variety of
horror film openings and decided which type we felt would fit into
our opening, we then went onto YouTube and also Incompetech
and looked for similar music to that which we felt would fit with
our opening. We then found an appropriate one on Incompetech
meaning it was not copyrighted and was available for use.

10. Editing
> When editing our preliminary task, we used iMovie, this is a
very amateur software compared to PremierPro and meant
that our product from the preliminary was not as smooth or
closely edited as our film opening.
> When editing our film opening, we used PremierPro, this
meant that our product was of a very high standard and also
meant that we could edit quite extensively. Due to being such
a good editing software, our final product is of a very high
quality. Although we were not very familiar with the software
to begin with and it took some explaining before I felt
comfortable using it, I now know the basics meaning I could
easily use it further.

11. iMovie

12. PremierPro

13. Titles
> With our Preliminary task we did not spend much time
thinking of our titles and we just entered classmates names
into the positions which made the whole process very quick
and easy to do.
> Whereas for the film opening we spent a long time looking
into existing titles, fonts and then adding appropriate names
such as the music producer being under the titles for music.
We had to look at many existing horror films for our title ideas
and I think this was effective as I feel that ours fit very well
into the genre of our film.

14. Sound
> With the sound for our preliminary task we did not spend any time at
all picking one out, I know personally that I picked the first music I felt
would fit in at all and we also did not record the conversation on an
external recording device, we used the sound from the camera which
is not very clear.
> With the music for our film opening however we spent a long time
finding an appropriate soundtrack. We watched existing horror film
openings and listened for the different types of sound tracks, decided
which we thought would be appropriate to use for our film opening
and then looked on Incompetech and found one we felt was very
effective for our opening. We also chose not to include much diologue
or diegetic sound as we felt that the microphone on our cameras was
not of a very good quality and we did not feel that we could lipsync
our speach whilst making it look natural.

15. Lighting
> For our preliminary task we did not think about the lighting
whilst filming, this means that we just used the lights from our
location however this meant that the lighting in our
preliminary was not very good for the task.
> For our film opening however we took into account what
lighting would fit into our genre conventions, for example with
the bathroom scene, we decided to use a particular bathroom
in the house as we felt that it had very harsh lighting which
would fit into conventions. We also decided to only use lamps
in the bedroom scenes as we felt this was darker and fit into
conventions slightly better than if we were to have the
bedroom lighting on.